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Category: Rethinking East European Studies in Times of Upheaval

Decolonizing Family Metaphors in the Context of the Russian-Ukrainian War and Beyond

By Illia Ilin. The recent history of Ukraine can be metaphorically described as a journey to break away from the abusive “triune Russian people” family and reconnect with the democratic “European peoples” family. This long process of decolonization has been ongoing for over 30 years and signifies the reclamation of Ukrainian territories, history, and identity by the Ukrainian people. This article will explore the family metaphors of (de)colonization of Russia and unified Europe in relation to Ukraine, and the potential for their expansion and decolonization.

Complicity, Past and Present: Portrayals of Involvement in Mass Violence and Terror in Documentary Fiction

By Juliane Prade-Weiss. One of the puzzling questions about Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and other conflicts is why people participate in, support, or condone mass violence when it appears, for observers, so glaringly wrong. Reasons for becoming complicit with violence against civilians vary with individual positions as well as historical and regional contexts. Participation in, aiding and abetting mass violence and the structures of authoritarian, totalitarian or other regimes exerting it are key issues in the social sciences and in history. Yet, literary texts can contribute to understanding complicity, too.

Rethinking East European Studies in Times of Upheaval: Some Reflections on Ukrainian Studies in Germany (and Not Only)

By Andrii Portnov. Ukrainian history and literature in the German higher education system are the disciplines whose institutional weakness is more than obvious. Ukraine itself, in the eyes of a large part of German (including academic) society, still does not have enough cultural and historical agency and remains ‘in the shadow of Russia’.